The Story About Ping (Paperback)

by Marjorie Flack (Author), Kurt Wiese (Illustrator) (Illustrator) "ONCE upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The tale of a little duck alone on the Yangtze River, The Story About Ping is a sweet and funny book with wonderfully rich and colorful illustrations. On a day like any other, Ping sets off from the boat he calls home with his comically large family in search of "pleasant things to eat." On this particular day, he is accidentally left behind when the boat leaves. Undaunted, the little duck heads out onto the Yangtze in search of his family, only to find new friends and adventures--and a bit of peril--around every bend.

The exceptional illustrations bring the lush Yangtze to life, from Ping's family to the trained fishing birds he finds himself among to the faithfully rendered boats and fishermen. Certainly intended to be read aloud, The Story About Ping deserves a place on every young reader's (or listener's) shelf. (Picture book)

Product Description
A childhood classic. "Kurt Wiese and Marjorie Flack have created in Ping a duckling of great individuality against a background (the Yangtze River) that has both accuracy and charm."--The New York Times. Full-color illustrations.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
  
• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Puffin; Illustrated. edition (August 25, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140502416
• ISBN-13: 978-0140502411
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 7 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #262,084 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9,240 of 9,551 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ping! I love that duck!, January 25, 2000

By	John E. Fracisco (El Segundo, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Story about Ping (Viking Kestrel picture books) (Hardcover)

PING! The magic duck!

Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix's most venerable networking utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and network infrastructure were finalized.

The book describes networking in terms even a child could understand, choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet structure. The ping packet is described as a duck, who, with other packets (more ducks), spends a certain period of time on the host machine (the wise-eyed boat). At the same time each day (I suspect this is scheduled under cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the host (boat) by way of a bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the packets travel onto the internet (here embodied by the Yangtze River).

The title character -- er, packet, is called Ping. Ping meanders around the river before being received by another host (another boat). He spends a brief time on the other boat, but eventually returns to his original host machine (the wise-eyed boat) somewhat the worse for wear.

If you need a good, high-level overview of the ping utility, this is the book. I can't recommend it for most managers, as the technical aspects may be too overwhelming and the basic concepts too daunting.

Problems With This Book

As good as it is, The Story About Ping is not without its faults. There is no index, and though the ping(8) man pages cover the command line options well enough, some review of them seems to be in order. Likewise, in a book solely about Ping, I would have expected a more detailed overview of the ICMP packet structure.

But even with these problems, The Story About Ping has earned a place on my bookshelf, right between Stevens' Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante's seminal work on MS Windows, Inferno. Who can read that passage on the Windows API ("Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by fixing on its depths my sight -- Nothing whatever I discerned therein."), without shaking their head with deep understanding. But I digress.

130 of 155 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provokes Young Readers' Imaginations Without Oversimplifying, July 24, 2000

By	Christopher Weaver "weaverc" (Wayne, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like many of the reviewers, this is a book I loved as a child and that I've returned to now that I'm a parent. While it has a moral--that many times, simply accepting an umpleasant consequence is better than trying to avoid it--it's not preachy about it. In fact, what's really nice about the storyis that it's not Ping's fault that he will be the last duck to board the boat (and thus get a whack upon his back). His head was below the water at the time, and he couldn't have heard the boat master's call. I think this is what gave me a thrill as a boy. I knew that the world wasn't fair and that sometimes punishments were unjust. This is what made me identify with Ping.

And the book really taps into a young child's fears. I remember being thrilled that Ping ran away instead of accepting his punishment--what small child hasn't fantasized about running away? And I remember thinking how terrifying to wake up and find that you were totally lost in the wide world--what child's greatest fear isn't that sort of separation?

I think that's the greatest thing about this story. It's not a tidy, pat treatment of issues like children's anxieties or the value of accepting the consequences of your actions. Rather, it's a tale that provokes imagination--that taps into those fears and ideas without simplifying them. And there are too few books that do this well.

Incidentally, in terms of age, I've just begun reading this book to my four year old, and I think that's been a good age for him to start appreciating it. But I can imagine a much older child enjoying it as well.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, November 30, 2003

By	Kevin Hamilton (Tokyo) - See all my reviews

When I was a kid growing up in the south, I used to read this book over and over. That was in the 1960's, when the Chinese, who's side we were on during the war, were a people we were supposed to hate, and the Japanese, who we hated during the war, were a people we were supposed to like. Nevermind all those reruns of anti Japanese war movies that were still playing on TV at the time.

The wise-eyed boat, the fishing birds with the rings around their necks, the boy with the wacky hairdo and peculiar barrel tied to his back. The hand-made wicker basket and complete absence of anything material or useless.

It humanized Asians for me in a way that was not only healthy, but induced a curiosity of the region and its peoples that I have still yet to satisfy, even after living for 18 years of my adult life in Northeast Asia. (Maybe I'm still running away from that dreaded spank!)

Every time I see those Peking ducks strung up in those shop windows in Hongkong I can't help but think of Ping and his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins.

Read Ping to your kids. It just might change their lives!!